January 30, 2009

Remember this? I realize that I never explained the circumstances behind the timing. I wasn't just getting myself inked four weeks before my wedding for the sheer thrill of possibly being scabby and scaly on the big day. I was celebrating the cumulative results of this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this.

That's right, dear readers, four months ago I got my G2! Now if that means nothing to you, you either live outside Ontario or you got your driver's license before the graduated licensing program was implemented. That would be about 95% of my readers. Long story short, in September I passed my first road test and am now permitted to drive unaccompanied. I have done so exactly once. I will tell you about that experience in a future post. I will also tell you about the road test, which I probably should have failed.

January 17, 2009

I used to volunteer. As a kid I would occasionally sort non-perishables with my parents for the local food bank. When I was an adolescent my dad and I delivered hot lunches for Meals On Wheels. I spent a couple of years working with a theatre group on a dramatic production introducing our school board's new multicultural policy to staff and students. For a few months after high school I took care of routine correspondence for Greenpeace. During university I volunteered for an organization that sent students to visit so-called "shut-ins." Shortly after graduating I was fortunate enough to land an advanced-level volunteer position with a large social service agency. The work involved researching, writing, and presenting difficult material in a sensitive manner. I loved that volunteer position so much that I held on to it with all my might for a decade.

To my tremendous delight, a paid position became available at the agency and I was eventually hired to do exactly what I had been doing as a volunteer. I had to take a pay cut and a huge leap of faith, leaving behind a cushy and secure job with many perks for a one-year contract. Lo and behold, after the contract ended my position became permanent. (Permanent, in a field like mine, is a relative term; recent legislative changes are significantly affecting my job, but I'm hoping to ride out the storm.) I don't think very many people are lucky enough to have their passions become their careers. I am truly very thankful. I am also missing volunteering. Doing a heck of a lot of work for pay is not as fulfilling as doing a heck of a lot of work for nothing more than the reward of knowing that you are doing it out of the goodness of your heart. Not that I'm about to give up my paycheque.

When I started volunteering for the agency I was one of about a dozen volunteers in my department. Ten years later I was the only volunteer left. That meant that, after I was hired, we had no volunteers. With a lengthy waiting list for our services it was decided that we required additional help. We met with our branch's volunteer recruiter and explained our needs. We required someone who was a quick study, who had excellent written communication skills and who was proficient in word processing. Also, because of the lengthy training period, we needed someone who could promise us at least one year of service. From time to time our volunteer recruiter would appear in our office with someone new and eager to help out. Every time, my co-workers would turn their chairs, greet the new volunteer enthusiastically and then swivel back to their computers. Perhaps because I am the person with the most recent volunteer experience, or because I am the only one in my position who is in the office five days a week, or because I swivel the slowest, the responsibility for the volunteers fell to me. I was left to describe the position, provide the training and review their work.

Volunteer Number One had a social work degree. Score! She was only volunteering because she didn't have enough Canadian experience to land a job in her field. Let-down! While she was fairly well spoken, her written English was so weak that she didn't know "him" from "her" or "he" from "she," and she couldn't keep her tenses straight. Editing her writing took me so long that I may as well have done the work myself. She was a nice lady, but her writing was so excruciating to deal with that I was praying for someone, anyone to hire her. My prayers were answered -- sort of. She got a job. Unfortunately, she felt so indebted to us that she kept showing up at our office whenever she had a day off. I had neither the heart nor the authority to fire a volunteer, but oh how I wanted to! Eventually the volunteer recruiter, sheepish over her lousy job of screening, reassigned Volunteer Number One to a more appropriate area of the agency.

Anxious to redeem herself, our volunteer recruiter brought us Volunteer Number Two. This young woman had just finished her studies in a field completely unrelated to our agency's work. Whenever she came in I had the distinct impression that she wasn't sure how she had ended up with us. That's certainly how I felt. Her writing skills made Volunteer Number One seem like a prizewinning journalist. One day she reported that she had to leave the country to go see a sick relative. It was several months before she reappeared. She told us that she had contracted malaria, necessitating a longer absence than she had anticipated. We soon realized that malaria wasn't the only thing she had picked up while she was away. She was quite obviously pregnant and, as such, she was unable to commit herself to a full year of volunteering. Our joy was genuine when we wished her farewell.

With two spectacular strikes, our volunteer recruiter became difficult to reach. One day, however, she came to announce that she had a fabulous candidate for us: a retired social worker with extensive experience in the social services. This woman's work history made the rest of us seem unqualified by comparison. We waited eagerly to meet Volunteer Number Three. When she arrived, we found her to be as knowledgeable and experienced as promised. She was so engaging and intelligent that my co-workers and I talked to her for over an hour, awed by her credentials. Finally I described the position to her in detail. She admitted that computer work wasn't her forte. She held up her hands, revealing a less-than-full complement of fingers. An accident had long ago robbed her of several digits, and she wasn't really interested in a desk job anyway. Wave good-bye, Volunteer Number Three.

After a long period of silence, our volunteer recruiter showed up unexpectedly with a twenty-something university grad who was bright and pleasant and articulate and intuitive. This young woman was in the middle of obtaining a second degree and she wanted to add to her volunteer experience. She quickly grasped the purpose of our work. I gave her some samples to read, one of which brought her to tears. She obviously had both the smarts and the sensitivity required for the position. She expressed her interest in the work and we arranged a date for her to start.

When it was time for Volunteer Number Four to leave I walked her to the elevators. As the doors slid open she stepped toward me. Perhaps because she had been emotional earlier my first thought was, "Aw, she needs a hug." I threw my arms around her and immediately thought, "Oh shit. She was just trying to shake my hand. She's the first qualified candidate we've seen and I'm about to scare her away. Crap crap crappy crap." In a lame attempt to cover up my mistake, I exclaimed, "I LOVE volunteers!" before releasing her. If only I could describe the expression on her face as I smiled and ushered her to the waiting elevator, acting as if my behaviour was perfectly ordinary. The elevator doors closed and I covered my face with my hands.

I returned to my desk and turned myself in, much to my co-workers' amusement. To everyone's great surprise Volunteer Number Four actually came back. She has been with us for several months now. While no one ever mentions my earlier faux-pas in front of her, my co-workers still delight in saying, "We LOVE volunteers" while smirking at me.

Much to our chagrin, Volunteer Number Four is so swamped with her studies that she has decided to stop volunteering until the spring. On her last day I had to leave early. I purposely bid her a very casual good-bye, saying, "See you in a few months." As I was walking away a co-worker stopped me and asked, "Jenni, aren't you forgetting something?" and mimed a great big hug.

I promise I'll give Volunteer Number Four a great big hug when she returns in the spring. For now, let her remember volunteering as a heck of a lot of work with no tangible rewards or recognition. If she's anything like me, that will make it seem all the more worthwhile.

January 15, 2009

January 04, 2009

I don't know when I first heard that quip but it has stuck with me, just like every cookie I've eaten in the past ten years. And every brownie. And every potato chip. And every second helping. And every alcoholic beverage.

I used to be thin. See?

Now I am plump. Chubby. Tubby. Fat, even. I know this from looking at recent photos and, ugh, at my reflection in those damnable inventions called mirrors. At the same time, my body image hasn't fully caught up to reality. On the one hand, I am conscious of all of my parts that jiggle inappropriately. On the other hand, as much as I kid about it, I haven't managed to internalize the fact that I have become a Large Woman. It's similar to having a phantom limb, only I have an entire phantom body, a thin one, enveloped by fat. I sense the presence of my formerly thin body as strongly as if it were still here.

I haven't altered my eating habits to make up for my slowing metabolism. I have allowed the odd ache, pain, strain or sprain to keep me from exercising regularly. I hate perspiring, which is apparently a necessary element of most forms of exercise. Swimming is relatively sweat-free, but I can't bring myself to go to a pool; even my formerly thin self didn't look so hot in a bathing suit. I recall vowing to start exercising in earnest after being shocked by the cross-section of an obese man's body at Body Worlds. Just seeing that the fat in a human body looks exactly like the fat in a cut of beef or pork disgusted me. Of course, while the image stayed with me, the inclination to exercise faded. What can I do to convince myself to get active? Either of the following scenarios might motivate me:

A few days ago I asked Scott to help me move my stationary bike from our abandoned basement to the main floor of our house. While the bike isn't linked to the speed of my internet connection, I am hopeful that its new location will be effective. After all, it is positioned where I often am: directly in front of the television. Of course, it also happens to be near the refrigerator. Who knows if I'll actually have the willpower to use the bike and resist the temptation of the fridge. All I do know is that I'm not going to make any New Year's resolutions regarding my weight or my diet; resolutions appear to be the surest way to kill good intentions.

Fellow Bloggers

Inspiration

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

-Agatha Christie

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?

- Henry David Thoreau

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

- Edmund Burke

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

- Douglas Adams

...as long as we are all here, it's pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it.

- Alice Walker

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

- Leo Buscaglia

The best things in life aren't things.

- Art Buchwald

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

- Albert Einstein

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

- Maya Angelou

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.

-Dalai Lama

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

- Mohandas Gandhi

Giggles

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, "Lillian, you should have remained a virgin."

- Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)

I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: "No good in a bed, but fine against a wall."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement.

- Mark Twain

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.

- George Burns

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.

- W.C. Fields

I hate writing. I love having written.

- Dorothy Parker

Some see the glass as half-empty, some see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as too big.

- George Carlin

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

- Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

You can't have everything; where would you put it?

- Steven Wright

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work…I want to achieve it through not dying.

- Woody Allen

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

- Groucho Marx

All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.

- Jane Wagner

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.

- Erma Bombeck

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

- Emo Philips

Remember, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.

- Darrin Weinberg

Always go to other peoples' funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours.